Fellow bassoonists and classical music lovers: what is your opinion of this video?

A. Canned drums make me want to puke.

Appalling! If you are going to attempt this kind of 'arrangement', at least try to do something a little more skillful that placing distorted bassoon sounds over a canned (and, frankly, boring) accompaniment.

The art of a decent arrangement is to retain a respect for the original and a little humility. This trash shows neither and it a completely pointless exercise.

@KK. You have a vivid imagination, but I'm sorry to tell you that Beethoven was, at least in one respect, "stuck in the past". Stölzel invented the piston valve in 1814, and paved the way for chromatic (valved) horns and trumpets. Why then, did Beethoven choose to ignore them? He could have used them in his 9th symphony, but stuck to the old natural (valveless) instruments instead. New doesn't always mean better. If anything, the trend is to look to the past. Witness the number of period instrument orchestras that exist now. It's not snobbery, it's authenticity.

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Edit for KK - I didn't address his use of the piano because you already mentioned it. And I'm sorry if my hyphenated surname upsets you, but you'll have to blame my great-great-great grandfather for that. I have a hyphenated forename, too. Would you like to raise the issue with my father? And yes, there would have been some resistance from horn players of the day. But Beethoven generally got his own way, and I'm sure he could have found four willing participants in Vienna, had he insisted on it.

B. It's a creative and musical look at how Mozart would satirize himself if he were alive now.

I thought it was creative and expressive. I am constantly amazed at the snobbery of some audiophiles that everything has to be stuck in the past. The great composers used the newest innovations available to them in their era and I'm sure that if they were alive in this era that they'd use every new instrument/technology they could. Beethoven could have gotten "stuck in the past" and used a harpsichord rather than his extensive use of the piano. I could easily imagine him using synthesizers midi'ed together with all sorts of instruments. I can imagine the day when all the "classic" instruments are abandoned for more facile instruments. Anyone that has even tried to play a bassoon knows that it has great intonation/pitch problems and is awkward to play. It is tantamount to making a hippopotamus tap dance to attempt presto passages in certain keys on a bassoon. With the oversampling that electronic instruments now have and the fact that technology advances so rapidly we could have keyboards that undetectably duplicate the timbre and tonal qualities of the tessitura of ANY instrument soon. I can imagine a time when four or five keyboardists sitting at instruments that manages the confluence of several synthesizers together could reproduce symphonic pieces in ways that could baffle the most discerning listener. I say, "Go for it !" Use everything possible from electrified "bassoon cacophony" to amplified "kazoo elegance" ! Bring it on ! Dazzle me with the breadth of instrumentation from a lute to polyphonic swine flatulence ! Edit/addendum for Anna Why didn't you address his use of the piano - after all he was a keyboardist. He probably met the resistance of of traditional horn players that said, "Valve horns aren't authentic" and how do you argue with stodgy snobs - they're somewhat like people with hyphenated last names !

A: Why would someone want to ruin a great piece of music?

B! (: